


Billy Jean

by ToastedButter



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, Single Parent Liam, ice cream truck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 16:45:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10858029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToastedButter/pseuds/ToastedButter
Summary: Liam Payne is an ice cream man with a baby to take care of. Zayn Malik is a good-for-nothing that lives on the edge 'for family'.They're kind of married, but Taylor Payne is not Zayn's son.





	Billy Jean

**Author's Note:**

> I deleted my account a while ago, but just reuploading for the sake of it.

 

—

“Fuckin’ _sprint_ , man. They’ve got the goddamn map covered. Admit it, we’re screwed—”

“I’ve got this,” Zayn breathes, careful not to cough into the chip on the collar of his dress shirt. It’s his best outfit and is completely ruined from top to bottom, the shirt’s hem soaked in splatters of mud and the cuffs of his trousers all tattered and worn.

“This isn’t the time for your ego,” Louis barks. The transceiver almost stirs from where it’s nice and snug in Zayn’s belt. “Drop the mission if it gets too heavy, just—”

“I’ve got this,” Zayn repeats. “Will be there in a good hour, bro. Send a man to pick up my stuff before the filth come back ‘round to investigate. I’ll send it down the drain.”

“Zayn—”

Zayn rips the walkie-talkie off of his body and, enjoying the liberty he is at without the weight dragging him down, smashes it against the wall behind him. Bending down, he twists open the drain and dumps the microphone and HT, doesn’t wait for it to hit the bottom before he slides it back shut. If what Louis said is true, which it probably is considering the fact that lives depend on this job being done, Zayn has no time.

Just when he’s about to jump over the wall, however, he hears footsteps approaching him. _Shit_. They’ll fucking see him. His hand automatically goes to feel the J-22 pistol planted in his trouser pocket, but it’s not a moment later that he snorts at the thought. His aim is never off and he takes pride in the fact, but providing direct target for them and risking not only his life but his gang’s; no, that’d be much too reckless. Not that what he just did wasn’t, but he’s much faster without those things anyway. It wasn’t his fault.

The steps grow closer and Zayn’s heart nearly pounds its way out of his chest. He’s fucked; he can’t fit through the drain and jumping over the wall will give him away. The only direction for him to run is towards the park, where it’s crowded with kids and their parents who wanted a fun but financially wise place for the children to run around aimlessly in.

Since it’s the only way, Zayn finds no reason to hesitate. Before the cops turn the corner and spot his shadow, he leaps into the green grass and the people stretched out on it that will protect him.

You hide a book in a library, after all.

—

Rolling up his sleeves while standing in the line for ice cream, Zayn taps his foot impatiently like a man actually waiting in line for ice cream would do. Will the police be brave enough to disrupt the townspeople’s weekend and fight crime in the name of justice? Zayn doesn’t know, but he doubts the idea.

“Sorry the line’s so slow—it’s a busy day today and little Taylor’s with me, making one heck of a mess.”

Zayn hums absentmindedly. A bulky cop with a determined face is walking over to the park, club in hand. Should he run or should he act natural?

“Excuse me?” The man before him snaps in an annoyed manner, and Zayn finally acknowledges him.

“Hmm?”

The man is standing inside the ice cream car, a scoop in his grip and an irritated look on his face. He has nice shoulders and a cute nose, one that his current expression crinkles. It’s cute, Zayn thinks. The man has a tag on his pink polo shirt that reads Liam Payne!! with a goofy smiley face above the letters, and something tells Zayn that the man wrote it himself. That will explain a lot of things.

“ _Hmm_ flavuh?”

It’s a little boy that speaks this time, one whose head barely peeks over the ice cream on display. He giggles as soon as he says it, and Liam gives a fond smile, too.

“Ahh; Taylor’s your _son_.” Something doesn’t seem too right about that, though, so Zayn adds, “But you look young.”

“I know that I am,” Liam says, brows furrowing. “Do you want an ice cream or not? There’s a pretty long line behind you and I do this for a living.”

Before Zayn has the time to reply, the officer that he’d eyed puts a hand on his shoulder. Zayn feels his muscles tense, and his instinct tells him to punch him in the face and run. But he doesn’t, because his instinct is also aware of the fact that police cars probably have the entire perimeter surrounded.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he says. His tone is pleasant but there’s an intimidating undertone to it. Zayn hates the way it sends a line of shiver down his bones, because he knows it’s always all bluff and no stuff. Only this time it isn’t, and that’s a bit of a problem.

“Good morning to you too, officer,” Zayn reciprocates, while Liam looks at the cop with wide eyes. Probably worried about losing his job. Zayn has deeper worries than that.

“The police are after a dangerous man, sir,” the cop says, eyes focusing on Zayn. His nose, rounded like a German Shepherd’s, is probably picking up the scent of crime on the material of Zayn’s clothes. “Have you seen a man, running or walking alone, with a communication device on his belt?”

“He wears his phone on his belt?” Zayn raises a good-humored eyebrow, but he has a feeling he isn’t fooling anyone. “Peculiar, I must say. Why’re you asking me?”

“Any man traveling alone around the height of 170cm is going with the officers,” the cop explains. His eyes are narrowing still and Zayn _knows_ that this man’s already made up his mind about him. “I’m sorry to interrupt your break, good sir, but we do what we have to do.”

“Ahh, I understand.” Hell if Zayn doesn’t. The look on the cop’s face is telling him to confess or run, both of which scenarios will take him to court. Zayn glances at Liam and his excited little baby, though, and jumps for the thinnest branch sticking out the cliff. “But I’m not traveling alone, you see. That’s my husband in the car and the little buddy is Taylor, his—and mine, obviously—baby.”

The cop looks taken aback, but his lips settle into a firm line in a moment. He turns to a petrified Liam with glowing cheeks, then, and asks in a low tone, “Is it true, sir?”

Zayn knows this is one Hell of a burden to put on a stranger—faking _marriage_ (a pretty gay one at that)—but he has to, it’s for the good of the gang and its people. And maybe Liam reads the message in Zayn’s pleading eyes or maybe it’s just because he’s too numb to speak properly, but he spurts out a “Yeah.”

The cop, unconvinced, snarls at Liam’s face, who stumbles back. Zayn knows this is his chance. He’ll feel sorry for Liam later.

“Hey, hey, hey now. Why do you have to do him like that?” He clenches his fingers into a fist and puts on his best act, one that he _knows_ is good enough to convince the dead. “What do you even think you’re doing, picking at innocent people like this? Is it because he’s gay? Is it because _I_ ’m gay?”

Looking at the startled look on the officer’s face, Zayn knows he’s got the upper hand. “N-no, sir, I was just—”

“Look at me.” Zayn steps closer to the cop so that they’re almost chest to chest, his trembling hand just a beat away from seizing the man’s collar. “I may be young—I _am_ young. And being a homosexual, I am also a minority. But that doesn’t mean you can disrespect me in front of my child like that. In fact, my father’s a friend of Inspector R. Rowland; believe it or not. I won’t say I can do much because I can’t, but I sure as Hell can get you fired.”

Hook, line and sinker. The cop turns white as soon as he hears the name being uttered.

“I apologize for the inconvenience, sir,” he sputters. “Do enjoy the rest of your weekend.”

“Same goes to you, officer,” Zayn says. He can’t hide the grin on his face as the officer waddles away, shoulders slumped in defeat. He then turns back to Liam, who he’s forgotten for just a second. “Look, little Liam, I’m sorry if that was a wee bit sudden—”

He doesn’t finish the sentence when he realizes it’s unnecessary. Instead, he closes his lips in a smirk, admiring the sight in front of him that is a tomato-red Liam Payne with his nose gleaming adorable pink. Whether it was the pet name or the unexpected incident that’s done the trick, Zayn doesn’t know, but he does indeed think that it’s a lovely sight.

—

“I’m sorry, y’know,” Zayn murmurs. Taylor is bouncing on hislap, shaking the plastic wheel in the air and going _vroom_ , _vroom_. “I said that to you, little Leeyum.”

The car is pretty warm inside and Zayn thinks he’ll start sweating in a little. The back of the truck is cramped with Taylor’s toys, the actual ice cream being stacked in big glass cabinets that separates the truck’s front from the mess. Liam has made specific instructions to keep Taylor away from the glass and ice cream at all times, and in order to achieve said feat, Zayn needs to keep the baby entertained.

“My name is Liam,” Liam spits curtly, but Zayn knows the blush is there. “Maybe you wouldn’t have to be so sorry if you could just go back to wherever you came from.”

“Don’t be so mean,” Zayn says, frowning. “I’m hanging out with the little buddy because you looked like you needed help. He’s quite cool, too, yeah?” He taps at Taylor’s back, who is too focused on pretending to be Batman to turn around.

“ _Shh_ ,” he hisses. “ _Robin_ , shh. We in _Batmobile_.”

“Sorry, man,” Zayn apologizes. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Goddammit, I apologize for all my past sins.”

“Don’t swear in front of my child!” Liam yells.

“Sorry,” Zayn says again, crouching. He flies like an eagle out on his field of bullets and illegal money, but inside an ice cream car and burdened with the task of babysitting, he feels quite inadequate. “For everything. Honestly, Lil Leeyum.”

“That’s _not my name_.”

“’S _Dada_ ,” Taylor corrects. It’s almost as if the little one feels bad for him. Repeat after Taylor, kids: “Dada.”

“Dada,” Zayn chuckles. “Alright then; and I’ll be Papa, yeah? Obviously, since that’s what we told the cops. Man, you shouldn’t _ever_ lie to the filth. The amount of work to get things back on track is not worth it, Taylor. Don’t be foolish like Papa.”

“ _Papa_ ,” Taylor murmurs. He’s already dropped the wheel somewhere and is testing the word on his tongue. “You?”

“That’s me,” Zayn says, grinning. Maybe he shouldn’t be doing this, but Zayn doesn’t get time off that easily. And since he’s obligated into hanging out, he might as well spend it the way he liked. “Me, papa. Him, dada.”

“And mama?” Taylor asks, innocent eyes gleaming in curiosity.

“I dunno, bub.” He gives the pouting baby a shrug. “You gotta ask Dada, he’s probably the smart one.”

Liam doesn’t say anything, though, other than the insincere _Enjoy the ice cream_ that he tells a customer. And Zayn can be pretty ignorant, but he’s not _that_ insensitive. Liam’s story makes a lot of sense, all of a sudden; a kid at young age and no mother. Well, well, well. Everyone made mistakes, it was alright. The only difference was that some made big ones and others made smaller ones. As a man that had done the former, Zayn knows exactly where Liam stands.

“Dada is real busy, I think,” Zayn says, petting Taylor’s soft head. “We’ll wait for his work to finish. Hey—where did the wheel go? Did the Joker steal it?”

“Da _Joker_ ,” Taylor gasps, eyes widening. He hops off Zayn’s lap and starts scrutinizing the perimeter with a serious face. Children at this age are easy to handle, with their short attention spans and giddy nature. Zayn knows the drill because he’s had to deal with another man’s child before. The task had been easy; keep the buddy silent while his father was being interrogated in an, ah, impolite manner. In this case, the purpose of things are a little different, but the procedure always stays the same. Whether to stab Julius Caesar or his treacherous colleagues was a choice made by moral, and you needn’t make a choice and stick with it if you didn’t have principles to start with.

Creeping up from behind the little figure, Zayn wraps his arms around Taylor’s small body and lifts him up. Liam screams at him to _put the baby down_ but Zayn laughs it away good-naturedly, slipping Taylor’s legs on either sideof his neck. Taylor screeches in bliss, little hands squirming for freedom in vain.

“Papa!” Taylor shouts.

“That’s right, my boy,” Zayn says, smiling fondly.

Zayn shouldn’t get attached like this, really. It’s dangerous, is what, for both of them and even Liam. But Zayn lives with no principles, remember? He’s pretty good at not giving a fuck, and that’s what he does for a few hours, Taylor entertaining the line of people as Zayn entertains the ice cream man. Liam barely chuckles at Zayn’s crude jokes, but Zayn doesn’t miss how his eyes widen when Zayn tells the one with the old couple rocking to the church bell. _Zayn_ laughs. Not at the joke, but at how squashy Liam looks like this, a smudge of ice cream on his chin and puffy cheeks filled with air in concentration.

It, well. It comes to an end. At exactly 2 PM, when Liam shift ends and the ice cream stand closes for half an hour till the other guy comes, Zayn’s happy little world of delusion and makeshift family comes to an end.

—

“Get your toys, Taylor,” Liam commands. His arms are crossed and he’s looking down at his boy with that big father look, one that Zayn thinks couldn’t look cuter.

“No want,” the little boy protests, shaking his head in motions so big that Zayn thinks it will roll off his shoulders. “Papa go? Papa bye-bye?”

“Not right now I won’t,” Zayn promises. “I’ll stay out here with Dada, okay? Bring your stuff and maybe we’ll go for lunch. _Oh_ , you know where we could go? We could get the Happy Meal at McDonalds and we’ll see if we can get a Batman toy. _And_ the Joker, too.”

“ _Batman_ ,” Taylor gasps. He crawls underneath the curtain draped across the ice cream car. Liam lets out a sigh of exasperation and care and Zayn laughs.

“Little kids,” he says, rolling his eyes. “They’ll abandon their own father if a guy promises them a flashy toy. You gotta make sure no one takes him or anything, alright little Leeyum? I mean, _I_ might’ve—not even for money, really. He’s a cute one, looks just like you.”

Liam blushes at the last statement, and Zayn wonders what Liam _does_ n’t blush at. How Liam manages to flush even further, honestly, is the question at this point. But before Zayn can joke about that, Liam beats him to it (not to the joke, to speaking); “You really were the guy the officers were looking for, weren’t you? And I’m saying this because Taylor’s not around and he seems to like you a lot; he said you were a _dangerous_ —”

“Can’t trust anything the po-po’s say, man,” Zayn groans. “Did you hear what the dude said to me? _Do enjoy the rest of your weekend, s-ir_. Well, shit. If I really was telling the fucking truth and he believed me, maybe I would spend the rest of my weekend shriveling away in shock or fury from a goddam homophobic copper almost grabbing me by the collar. It’s the name that did the trick; that much you should know, too.”

“How do you know the man, anyway?”

Zayn doesn’t feel like telling the truth will work very well in the situation. Liam won’t know how to react if Zayn told him that his friends aided in the previous Inspector’s “accident” before R. Rowland took his place. (Zayn obviously didn’t. He didn’t like things like that, violence, as much as it disagreed with his image.) “Uh, just floating around and knocked into ‘m, I guess. Been in tight places, I have, and so’s the guy. A little full of shit but he’s dumb enough to trick, I should think.”

Liam raises a skeptic brow. “So you _are_ a little, uh, underground. What kind of things do you do?” He then adds, stepping back a bit, “You don’t—normal people, you don’t—”

“I wouldn’t _ever_ , Liam.” Zayn actually feels angry as he yells the statement. He knows he has no right to feel such emotion while speaking to Liam, a man he barely knows, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the first time Zayn’s called him by his actual name, and it feels a little strange. Liam must’ve felt so too because his pursed lips tremble a little in the summer heat.

Zayn sighs and walks forward, lays a hand on Liam’s cheek who flinches but doesn’t move away. “Itty bitty, little wittle Leeyum. No, I will never hurt an innocent man with no purpose in mind. With a knife to my throat, I only do the shit I do because I gotta keep myself and the gang alive. I have a different family, that’s all, and I never got to choose where to be born. I won’t fucking change it, though, even if I were given the choice. Family is family, yeah?”

“Yeah, I know that,” Liam mutters. “Family is family. I know that.”

“I know that you do,” Zayn says, nodding. He pats Liam’s head and feels a smile creep its way to his lips as he sees the way Liam leans into the touch, like a little baby in need of a hug. Zayn makes a mental note that Liam needs lots of hugs, lots and lots and lots of hugs from Zayn. He shakes the thought away, though; he’s not going to be there forever for the guy. Attachment is a scary thing, as aforesaid.

“Are you, though?” Liam asks, an anxious quiver to his voice. Not necessarily frightened or intimidated; just anxious. “Gay, I mean.”

Zayn shrugs. “Why not? I’ve never pondered too deeply about it, but I guess so. Why? Have a thing or two for me and my eyelashes? I know I’ve got a killer set, mate.”

“N-no, not like that.” Liam shakes his head like his life depends on it. Zayn should feel rejected but he really doesn’t, finds everything adorable. “I was just. Asking.”

“Of course you were,” he snorts. Then, noticing something that’s been bothering him, Zayn reaches out for the protruding point of Liam’s chin. He wipes the hint of ice cream away with his thumb, licks it off from the tip of his digit with a roll of his tongue. “There was ice cream on your chin,” he explains, when Liam turns completely scarlet and stares at him in awe. “There, ‘s not there anymore.”

“I—” Liam is saved from the ordeal of speech when Taylor climbs back out from the ice cream car, chocolate sprinkles covering his face and his little bag of toys drenched in vanilla ice cream going drip, drip, drip.

“Dada, Papa!” he greets, shoving the bag to his back like he believes no one will uncover his perfect crime if he does so.

“ _Taylor_ ,” Liam groans. “You got ice cream by yourself, didn’t you?”

“No,” Taylor denies. “Taylor, no.”

“Don’t lie to Daddy; what’s this on your face?” Liam runs a finger down his son’s face and shows the little guy the evidence of vice, whose attitude subsides at the obvious proof.

“Spwinkles,” he admits in a scarcely audible tone. “Only one,” he assures, a last meek attempt.

“And your backpack?” Liam accuses, arms crossed. He’s putting on that stern look again, and Taylor looks scared enough to piss himself. Zayn just wants to laugh the millennia away but he holds it in; he has no right to ruin another’s child’s education for his own enjoyment.

“One vanilla,” Taylor murmurs.

Liam frowns and shakes his head, but there’s a tinge of a smile underneath his disappointed façade. “Let’s go back inside and wash your face. Quick so we can grab that lunch.”

“ _Batman_ ,” Taylor agrees eagerly. Liam pushes the curtains away for Taylor to crawl in and motions for Zayn to come. Zayn raises an eyebrow but feels something like warmth seep into his skin; a funny phrase, considering it’s that time in summer when the sun burnt all the ants by itself without the middleman.

—

They’re looking for a missing piece in Taylor’s small Lego set when the roaring chorus of Billie Jean erupts out of nowhere. Taylor screams _It Bane! It Bane!_ and Liam makes a face. “Michael Jackson?”

“It wakes me up,” Zayn explains, pulling his phone out his pocket. It’s Niall that’s called, and Zayn frowns at the notion of him trusting a detectable way of communication. “I’ll slip out for a bit, that okay? Be back in a mo.”

The park’s cleared out, now that it’s time for lunch. It’s forbidden to eat at the place around this time, mostly because the overweight pigeons attack like trained eagles and the town’s tired of visitors complaining. Zayn picks a spot on the grass that a tree’s drawing a shade over and settles down, leaning against the trunk that’s cool and bumpy against his back.

“Hello?”

“ _Zayn Javvad Malik_.”

Niall’s not a terribly readable guy, but something tells Zayn that he’s not in one of his best moods. Well, what did Zayn ever do? Niall answers the question before Zayn does the work himself.

“YOU SAID YOU’D BE BACK IN AN HOUR—A FUCKIN’ _HOUR_ —WE THOUGHT YOU WERE _DEAD_ , MALIK!”

“Oh, that,” Zayn mutters. “Yeah, I forgot. Sorry, man.”

“‘ _Sorry, man_ ’,” Niall mocks. Zayn can practically see the way he must look right now, nose bright red in rage and fingers shaking, a common symptom of chain smoking. “You’d _better_ be. We were ‘bout to send men out, just for _your_ sorry arse. I said I’d call just in case, so you better consider yourself fuckin’ lucky.”

“Thanks, Niall,” Zayn says earnestly. “Louis would’ve killed me if Curly had to venture out for ‘my sorry arse’, as your Irish tongue puts it.”

“What the Hell were you off doing, anyway?” Niall interrogates. “You sound pretty alive and sane, but I can never tell anymore.”

“Made some friends,” Zayn muses. That’s a good way to put it, he thinks, and does a mental high five with his inner philosopher. He thinks of the cop and how close he was, then, and says, “Nearly got into some trouble, I think. But ‘ve got all my arms and legs, all is well.”

“Don’t be fuckin’ vague with me,” Niall growls, but Zayn only gives a breathy laugh. “What you did out there was fuckin’ dangerous, I tell ya. Could’ve got your arse killed.”

“Arses don’t die,” Zayn counters. “’Sides, I was _fine_. I didn’t want Lou to send out more men, ‘s all. We don’t need that many risking lives, you know that. I’ve gone through this enough times to finish it with my eyes closed.”

“I _know_ you’re doing it for the ever-so-loyal family shit,” Niall sighs. “It’s time you cared about your fuckin’ self, though, mate. I’m sayin’ this ‘cause you’re a good friend of mine; you’ll have to walk out of this business in a while, let’s be honest. Not all of us _can_. And you gotta establish your _own_ family, and—y’know, Zee.”

“I don’t think I do,” Zayn mutters.

“C’mon, Zayn.”

Zayn frowns, tilts his head back against the tree. He doesn’t like thinking about things like this, every word a stroke of a knife digging across his back.

Zayn was brought up from the streets and thrives in its odor. That’s where he belongs, that’s where he is himself. People need to stop questioning him of his beliefs and nonexistent ethics; he doesn’t like it, the way it makes him feel. Like he’s drowning in a pit full of vipers, only those wretched things won’t bite him. Their tongues hissing and licking at his skin but no venom seeping into his bones; ah, to be petrified to death.

“I’ll get there in an hour,” he reassures.

“An _hour_? We don’t have time—Louis will murder you. He’ll murder _everyone_.”

“Half an hour, then,” Zayn negotiates.

“Twenty minutes,” Niall declares, unfaltering. “That’s all you’re getting, and I bet that’s enough. Be quick, Malik.”

“Fine, you asshole,” Zayn hisses. He hangs up with a deep scowl on his face. He can see Liam and Taylor perched by the side of the ice cream stand, Taylor screaming in glee as Liam waves a plastic soldier figure in the air. He thinks about what the fuck he’s supposed to do with them, his own goddamn life.

Screw it all. It’s all because that cursed leprechaun brought up that darned subject.

“Hey guys,” he says, adapting an apologetic tone. He doesn’t have to put too much effort in the acting, because he sincerely _is_ sorry. “I—something just popped up, I gotta go.”

Liam blinks. His lips are sealed in a straight line and his grip tightens around Taylor, who tugs at Liam’s shirt and speaks concernedly; “Papa, bye-bye? No want, Taylor. No want.”

“I’ll come back to you, I promise,” Zayn says. “Hey, Liam—I’ll give you my number, maybe we could hang out—”

“No, thank you,” Liam snaps. It stings like a bee, somewhere. “C’mere, Taylor; we can go get our own Happy Meals. You’ll go with Daddy, okay?”

“But _Papa_ ,” Taylor mumbles. He has legitimate tears in his eyes and Liam’s fingers are curled into a fist; no parents like seeing their kids cry, Zayn supposes.

“He’s not Papa,” Liam says quietly. “He’s not—let’s go, Taylor. Don’t cry, please.”

Taylor purses his lips and crinkles his nose, but that only lasts about a second. He bursts, droplets of tears running down his face as he collapses to the ground, wailing. Liam covers his face with his hands, and Zayn can hear the soft whispers of _calm down, calm down, calm down_.

“I left something in the car,” he murmurs, which is a blatant lie that they’re all aware of, maybe except for Taylor who’s too sad to care. He slips in through the curtains, leaving Zayn out on the park with Taylor crying on the grass.

“C’mon, mate,” Zayn coaxes. “I’ll come back to you, I promise for real. Actually, here—” He pulls out a crinkled ten pound note from his pocket, handing it to the little boy. “Tell Dada to buy you a Happy Meal with this. I’ll find him and you around this park later, yeah? Tell him my name is _Zayn_.”

“Yeah,” Taylor says through hiccups. “Za-een.”

“Stay happy, my Batman.” He cocks his head to the side to give Taylor a light peck on the forehead, and goes on his way.

He doesn’t think about Liam as he hops over the wall that had previously hindered him from making a successful escape. He wonders if his head wouldn’t hurt as much as it does now had he chosen to take the risk of jumping over it, but drops the thought soon enough. Thinking isn’t his forte, and his brain feels stuffed enough as it is.

—

The place stinks of damp cement and sewer, but it’ll be good enough once they get it cleaned out. Hoisting the flagpole in his grip, Louis pushes the cobwebs off of the corner. The studio was under construction once, but the mayor couldn’t agree to a musician in such a bad place of town. They were taking the building down, Zayn had heard, but the documents for that were all eradicated, the final thumbdrive in his possession. He wasn’t harming that many people, anyway. Some of the workers there would get fired, yes, but none of them got to where they were with clean feet.

This is being done to save lives, anyway. The law doesn’t protect the minorities; weaklings protect themselves.

“Did you get—?”

“Obviously,” Zayn grunts. “I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember.”

Louis nods, like he thought that would be the answer. “For how long do you think the place is safe?”

“About a year, I should say.” Zayn taps on the wall to his right and coughs at the cloud of dust. This’ll require some serious cleaning. “We’ll have to evacuate every Thursday or so, when the filth’ll hang around, but we haven’t got a sanctuary for nothing. They’re all whimpering piglets anyway.”

“A _year_ ,” Louis says, admiration evident in his voice. “That’s the longest we’ve had a place for, innit?”

“Think so. It’ll take some work to make life possible in this environment, though.”

“Leave that to us.”

Zayn doesn’t have to turn around to know that the slow drawl belongs to Harry Styles. He can also tell just by the sound of it that he’s probably brought along a swarm of his friends from the neighborhood town. Zayn knits his brows at the familiar scent of pot; he doesn’t like it. Not that he’s against drugs (he _deals_ them) or Harry’s hippie style of life—just his friends. There’s something off about those guys, Zayn knows, and for that reason he never lets his guard down around them. Harry seems to like them well enough, though, so he doesn’t let it show much.

“Haz,” Louis greets, stretching out his arms. This is another reason Zayn doesn’t kick Harry and his friends out; Louis is fond of that boy, God knows why.

“Hullo, Lou. And you too, Quiffy.” He’s a nice guy, Harry. Really. Just fucking annoying. Zayn offers the man a smile that barely dangles on his face, just for Louis’ sake. “We can take care of the manual labor—you’re all brain.”

Zayn knows that Harry means it as a compliment because intelligence in the hood is something everyone respects you for, but he can’t help the fact that he sounds like a big time douche. “Yeah. Well over brawn, curly.”

Harry raises an eyebrow at the comment, and Louis groans. “You both need to shut the fuck up. What’s wrong with you two?”

Zayn shrugs. “Nothing in particular. Good thing that the day’s savior has arrived. Need me to do anything, or has Niall got it down?”

Louis frowns, eyes narrowing. They haven’t been best friends for so many years for nothing, however, and Louis knows to let this one go. “I think he’s got it under control, yeah. You’re off for the week. How long will the makeover take, Haz?”

“Dunno; Mac?”

A guy standing next to Harry pulls out a calculator from the pocket of his leather jacket—what the Hell it’s doing there, Zayn is not brave enough to ask—and types in a few numbers, making a face at the screen. “Give us a day or two,” he says, his tone gruff and bored.

“Great,” Louis says, grinning. “I’m glad that we decided to team up for the project. Zee here says they probably won’t get to sign the document for a year to come, and you can take his word. Almost always.”

Harry nods, giving Zayn a sincere smile of appreciation. “We couldn’t have it done without you, honestly. Thanks, mate.” He stretches out a hand, then, and looks at Zayn expectantly.

Zayn reciprocates the gesture of respect—the nod—but doesn’t take the hand. He’s given, now he wants to get. Gratitude doesn’t mean shit. “You know that big park you have in your town, the one that stretches across Main Street?”

“Yeah. Why? Is that where you got lost, or whatever it was?”

“Something like that.” Zayn doesn’t ask himself why he’s talking about this with Harry as he says, “A guy helped me out there. At an ice cream stand? It’s a truck, but he parks it, so. He called himself Liam, Liam Payne, and he has this little buddy named Taylor. He looks about twenty, give or take a few years, and he has these adorable cheeks—”

“You found yourself a guy?” Louis asks, eyes widening. “I cannot believe you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t _find myself a guy_ ,” Zayn grumbles. “So, Curly; do you know the guy?”

“Think so,” Harry muses, brows furrowing in concentration. “Hey, Mac—isn’t he the guy that had a child with Sophia? Or was it Danielle, I forget. The stripper, remember?”

Zayn gulps. Liam hadn’t come off as a guy that would sleep with strippers and make mistakes in the process. But then again, you couldn’t judge a book by its cover. Zayn knows that he looks pretty professional and sophisticated in his dress suit that is now a mess.

“He’s nineteen,” Mac provides. “He was kicked out of his parents’ after he got the girl pregnant, and that girl ran away to join some dance crew. He had plenty of chances to ship the child off to an orphanage and return to his parents’ house, but I heard that he’s turned down all the offers. He attends night classes at the community college, I believe. He was what the whole town was talking about for a few months when the incident did happen, but as all stories do, it died down.”

Zayn hums thoughtfully, stroking his chin.

“Just for your information,” Harry adds. “That stripper was drunk and so was Liam at the time. None of them knew what was happening, and Liam was pretty adamant on stopping the abortion. I’ll find out his number for you, if you want.”

Zayn raises a brow at the curly headed man, who gives him a sheepish smile. See, Harry Styles is a nice guy. They shake hands, Harry’s big fingers clasped tightly around Zayn’s.

(But there’s still something—off.)

—

Zayn walks past a cop that eyes him with a scowl. He gives the man a big smile and strolls on. He’s got nothing to be afraid of today; he’s just taking a walk, and a walk’s never killed nobody.

He hasn’t got any jobs for himself, now that he’s done with the big one, and it’s going to take some time for the gang to settle down anyway. He’s got enough money to keep himself alive, maybe buy himself a cone of ice cream if he has the time. He subconsciously leads himself to the ice cream stand, where the truck is parked and getting ready to start for the day.

“ _Za-een_?”

Zayn laughs. Liam is squatting near the tire, a wrench in his hand. He looks like he’s looking at his dead grandfather. “It’s _Zayn_. But it’s only fair you get to use a nickname, too, little Leeyum.”

“Oh, sorry.” Liam sits up, brushing the dust off his jeans. He’s dressed as a working man, his tucked white tanktop just an inch too short that skin underneath could be viewed. Zayn doesn’t remember licking his lips. “Taylor said it like that. I can’t believe I didn’t ask you your name earlier. And I can’t believe—” That’s where he shuts his mouth, looking up with his pair of apologetic eyes.

“It’s okay, you can say it.” Zayn grabs a seat on the grass himself. It’s a little wet from dew, and it pokes him in the unmentionables, but it feels nice. “You can’t believe I did come back?”

“I—kind of,” Liam admits, looking a little ashamed. “I’m sorry, Zayn.”

“I said it was alright,” Zayn laughs. He scoots closer to Liam so that he can see his face better. “But I wouldn’t lie to you, really. Do you think I would? Do I look like the kind of person that would lie?”

“I guess not,” Liam mumbles.

Zayn sticks out his tongue, which makes Liam giggle and swat him away. “What’re you working on? Am I distracting you? Hey, where’s Taylor?”

“Too many questions. There’s something wrong with the suspension, I think, it keeps drooping. You’re fine, you can stay. And Taylor’s at Daycare, I gotta pick him up later.”

“Liar,” Zayn says, raising a brow.

Liam frowns. “I’m not lying, he really is.”

“The second question, I mean.” Zayn scoots even closer to Liam and the car with the mask of a man trying to take a look at the problem. Liam smells nice, like ice cream and babies and hot chocolate. “I _am_ distracting you. You’re blushing all over, little Leeyum.”

This is when Liam _does_ blush all over, eyes widening at the profanity. “Stop,” he says, swatting Zayn away, but he’s avoiding eye contact.

The amount of sexual tension in the air is oddly pleasing, Zayn feels. He normally gets bored in situations like this, when girls redden and boys stammer, but Liam is a little different in the sense that he makes _Zayn_ want to giggle and stutter in his head. Liam is like a big plush bear everyone has had at least once in their childhood, sitting at the corners of their bed with a warm smile and a pair of cuddly arms.

“I could help you,” Zayn suggests. “I’ve fixed cars before. I’m obviously not a professional, but I could still try.”

“Really?” Liam raises his head from where he was staring at the ground, looking doubtful. “You sure you don’t have anything better to do?”

“I’m completely free at the moment,” Zayn promises. “When does the stand open?”

“About an hour,” Liam says. “I’ve got to pick Taylor up before that, though.”

Zayn thinks about it. A few bolts here and there are loose, but that’s nothing. The truck needs an entirely new spring, though, the left one has broken off. There would be no use it trying to reattach it.

“Do you have the manual? It’ll take about forty minutes, I should think.”

“Really?” Liam gasps.

“Yeah,” Zayn repeats. “Manual?”

“Oh, manual—sorry.” Liam hurries off into the truck. As soon as he’s out of sight, Zayn wonders what he’s doing. He was going to buy ice cream, maybe have a chat, not fix a goddamn truck. But that really doesn’t matter because Liam is all over the place, in an adorable way, watching over Zayn’s shoulder as he deals with the labor. He scurries by with a cup of ice water with every drop of sweat that rolls down Zayn’s neck, reminding Zayn of a loyal guard dog.

“’S all done,” Zayn exclaims. It took thirty seven and a half minutes; he timed it with his phone. “You should be good now.”

“Thank you _so much_ ,” Liam breathes, like Zayn just killed a monster under his bed. “You’re amazing, Zayn, you really are. Thanks again.”

“No problem,” Zayn says. “When do you need to go for Taylor?”

Liam looks at his wristwatch and makes a face. “Shoot. I think I’ll have to run.”

“Oh, alright then.” Zayn’s heart suddenly starts pounding in his chest, crumbling in anticipation. “Give Taylor my regards.”

Liam kills him by opening his mouth like he wants to say something but zipping it up again. Zayn’s brain is blowing up with his thoughts screaming _say it, say it, say it (ask me to come with you)._ (Spoiler: Liam doesn’t.)

“I will,” he says finally. “He likes you a lot, Taylor.”

“Yeah,” Zayn murmurs. “Goodbye, little Leeyum. See you soon.”

Zayn likes Taylor, too. Zayn likes _Liam_.

He whistles to a dreary tune as he finishes up his walk. It fits his mood because he never did end up getting that ice cream. And Liam never asked him his number. Or last name. Or whether he was coming around some other time.

Zayn has never been one for heartbreak. He’s never been the kind of man to act so manly while slowly becoming a teenage girl inside, praying he’ll ask him his number because Zayn was too shy and too awkward to do so first. He’s read in books that this is love, this tingly and buzzing sensation in his stomach is a crush.

He’s got to do something with himself before he steps out of his box of denial. Zayn is _scared_.

—

Liam Payne. Taylor Payne. A stripper and an ice cream man.

It’s been a week.

Living up to the region’s notoriety, scattered pieces of junk and stone are covering up the lumpy pavement. He kicks an empty can of coke and it goes spiraling in the air, crashing against the barbed wire fence of an abandoned factory. Zayn’s heard that some make crack down in its basement, and he knows enough about the neighborhood to know that the rumor is probably true. Rumors spread fast around this part of town, but no rumor was groundless.

Liam Payne. Taylor Payne. That kid sure liked Batman. Liam liked—what did Liam like? Zayn, maybe. He remembers that heartwarming shade of pink on Liam’s nose when Zayn wiped off the ice cream on his chin.

Zayn tries to picture Liam’s shy, blushing smile and the little buddy’s toothy grin. For some reason, he can’t.

That’s not strictly true. Zayn can. He thinks about Liam’s face every day and every night, so frequently and randomly that Louis’ stopped making fun of him and has started looking genuinely worried. But every time Zayn does think of his chipmunk cheeks and coffee brown eyes, he feels guilt’s dagger dig into his stomach. It isn’t right. Liam’s having a hard time as things are, and he’s being pretty strong and brave for a nineteen year old on whom the weight of the world was suddenly dropped. He probably doesn’t need another burden titled Zayn Malik, worst husband material.

Sure, Zayn is better off than the hoods beating themselves black and blue, but not by much. What he’s doing is just as unrespectable from a political point of view, and Zayn agrees. (Sometimes it makes him feel sick, all the crime he has to get into. But then he remembers he’s doing it for family. For family.)

“Fucking little Leeyum,” he murmurs. His life was much better before that cursed motherfucker.

“Who?”

He twists around instinctively, seizing the speaker’s collar in a death grip. Said attackee bellows a choked “What the Hell, man! ‘S _me_!”

“Oh, Lou.” Sighing in relief, Zayn loosens the grasp. Louis falls to the ground, coughing. “Sorry. I haven’t been on my best condition lately.”

Dressed in a polo shirt and a pair of neat jeans, Zayn knows that Louis is visiting uptown today. He also knows that there’s a small dagger hidden in his belt, only for safety reasons. Violence is almost never worth it.

Louis pulls out a cigarette from the pocket of his jeans and offers Zayn a smoke. Getting a shake of the head in response, he raises a brow and his hand retreats to light his cancer stick.

“I figured,” he says, cigarette tucked between his fingers. “You could’ve crushed my windpipe. So, little Leeyum? Is that a pet name for the Liam Payne that’s been messing with your brain lately?”

Zayn shrugs, but he knows there’s no use in keeping secrets from Louis Tomlinson. He finds everything out, sooner or later, only he’s a little grumpier in the second scenario. A grumpy Tommo is not a pretty sight. “Yeah, something like that.”

“What happened, exactly?” Louis asks. “I know that you ran away to the park from the cops. What next? Tell me the whole story, how the Hell an ice cream man became your lover.”

“Not my lover, not really,” Zayn murmurs. “And the kid isn’t mine, either.”

“Hmm?” Louis makes a face. “You’re not making any sense, Zee. Care for a kip before the tale?”

“Nah. But we kind of—got married? Like. The story goes that we kind of got married a long time ago, only we never did. And I was Taylor’s Papa, too, only he wasn’t my son. Y’know. Not lying to the pigs.”

“Yeah.” Louis exhales a fog of smoke, and Zayn really wishes he hadn’t rejected the offer. “That still makes no sense.”

“I guess,” Zayn sighs. He takes a seat with his back leaning on a mattress someone threw out their window, and pats the space to his left for Louis to make himself comfortable. Louis is a patient listener, doesn’t call Zayn out on it when he sneaks a cigarette from his pack as he continues.

“So he likes you too?” It feels weird, talking to Louis about this… stuff, with Liam. Zayn talks to Louis about everything, but ‘boy problems’ or whatever he’s supposed to title this has never been an ideal topic selection with anyone in Zayn’s life. It’s not that Zayn doesn’t have feelings, it’s just, well. He normally isn’t up for stuff like this, emotional devotion.

“Yeah,” Zayn murmurs.

“And you like him?”

“Yeah.”

“His kid likes you?”

“Yeah.”

Louis makes a face. “Then what’re you being such a pussy for? Go for it, man, no one’s holding you back.”

Zayn snorts, snubbing out the butt on the pavement. “He’s a fucking ice cream man, a college boy. He’s got a _child_ , Hell. I’m not good for people like that. ‘Sides, I wouldn’t be—me. Y’know?”

“ _Become_ good for people like that, then.” Louis gives him a shrug like it should be obvious. “Don’t say shit like _I wouldn’t be me_. You’ll still be you alright, count on me. What you choose to be _is_ you, after all.”

“Hermann Hesse is not good for you,” Zayn grumbles. He doesn’t want to talk about this, doesn’t want to talk at all.

(But what _does_ he want?) (He wants to get ice cream at the ice cream stand. He wants to play Batman with Taylor and poke little Leeyum’s adorable nose.) (But he’s _not_ Papa, is the thing, just like Liam said. Zayn is not Papa. Zayn is Zayn, he’s a worthless street rat that can’t be any good for anyone.)

“Her—? I don’t know what that is,” Louis says. “Hear me out, though, mate. You’ve been pretty depressed, and uh, obsessive lately. Not over me or anything, but just generally. I know that you’ve always loved the idea of family, and that we were what fit into that description, but you don’t need to feel _required_ to stick to us forever and ever, you know? Don’t be so stressed over it is what I’m saying. You’re allowed to move on, establish a household of your own. _That_ ’s how family really works; it’s not some bond you’re not meant to break.”

“Piss off,” Zayn groans, pushing him away. He steps on what’s left of his cigarette and crushes it with all he’s got, until all there’s left is a smear of soot and a flat nugget of grey. “I’m not here for wise words.”

“Yeah—what’re you here for? Sense of duty?” Louis’ tone is that of a man trying to pacify his child; here’s a toy, little baby, please don’t cry. Let this be a lesson to never climb up the cabinets using the drawers as stairs. “Look, we’ve been talking, your pals and I, about you. And we know that you never chose to be here.”

“You guys were talking behind my back?”

“That’s not my point. Take me and Niall for example; we’re here, stealing and forging documents, because _we_ fucked up as adolescents. And we regret it, alright, but we have no better route. And I think it’s a good enough life for a screw-up like me. But you? Dammit, man, you were taken in at young age, you never knew better. There’s _nothing_ you did wrong.”

“I _did_ choose to be a part of this, this—everything,” Zayn spits, fuming. “And no one ever did anything _wrong_ —”

“No you didn’t,” Louis declares. Zayn can practically see something like a cord snap in Louis’ eyes, and suddenly he’s a man Zayn’s never known. “You never had a fucking choice. And that’s unfair. You may think that this is good enough for you, that we’re family and you’re fine with it. But god _dammit_ , Zayn, that’s not it at all. This isn’t family—this is a _gang_. These people—these people, including _me_ , they kill people.”

Zayn’s fist is trembling by his side, and his world is falling apart strip by strip. “How dare you. I thought you said—you always said we were—”

“ _We_ , on the other hand,” Louis cuts through, “ _We_ ’re brothers. We’re not supposed to be, but to Hell with it, we _will_ be. And that’s why I’m saying this, Zee. We don’t have a chance of getting our lives back, but _you_ do. I was saving this subject for later but here it is. You’re going to have to find your own and actual family, mate.”

“Why are you saying this?” Zayn’s voice is barely audible as he whispers, “Why? Because I told you about the ice cream boy and you thought I wanted to marry him and get away?”

“Partially,” Louis admits. “But no. It’s been something Niall and I were worried about for quite a time. That’s kind of why we had to hire Harry.”

Zayn understands the disharmony in the idea of Harry Styles, now. “He was—he’s a replacement.”

“A replacement for a worker, yes, although never as good as you. A replacement for a brother?” Louis turns around and looks him in the eyes, those icy blue eyes that never failed to pierce through one’s soul. He stretches out a hand for Zayn to take. “Never, Zayn.”

Zayn doesn’t flinch from where he sits. “You haven’t answered my question. Why? Why have you been so desperate to kick me out lately?”

“I already said—”

“Give me the _real_ reason,” Zayn hisses. “Or I’m going to call the fucking cops and get the lot of us arrested. We’ll all be hanged, fuck it.”

Louis’ eyes widen. Under normal circumstances, Zayn should be mad to suggest such a thing, but both are aware that in his state of fury, Zayn Malik can do anything. And _will_ do anything, too, if he is given a chance and a reason. Zayn really needed that anger management when he was twelve.

Carefully taking back his hand, Louis tries to even out his breathing. He fails. “The documents we told you to get—it’s the town’s electricity bills, Zayn. That’s why I didn’t want you to take a risk.”

“…Why?”

Louis sighs. “We’re—we can’t stay here. It started as a little project to keep ourselves alive and away from the cops, and all was well back then. They thought it was some teens’ joking around; things like that are common in the hood. But this can’t be a joke anymore. This is—this isn’t. We’re how old, now? Old enough for it to be legitimate crime. Like you said, Zayn. We’ll all be sentenced to death because everything has become too big to be considered a practical laugh; Boss is actually thinking joining a crime network. Going underground for real.”

“ _No_ ,” Zayn breathes. This. This can’t be real. “We were just trying to live.”

“We were trying to live the wrong way,” Louis says sadly. “What I was trying to tell you is that a criminal organization isn’t, and will never be, fucking family. _Never_.” His voice is low and controlled, but his fingers are shaking as he adds, “I can’t let it be family, not yours.”

“What about you, Lou?”

Louis shrugs. “I’ve already been to juvie, I’ll make it out alive. But you, on the other hand—no. You’ve always been smart, always brought me straight A’s from school. You _need_ to get out of this thing.”

Zayn’s mind is racing, now. What should he do? What should he think? Louis is telling the truth, Zayn knows. Louis is his brother. _What is he supposed to do_?

“If I go,” he says, “You’ll go with me.”

“No,” Louis replies, shaking his head. There’s something so sad about his usually annoying smile, and Zayn wants to rip it off from Louis’ face until all he can see on the palette of his brother’s face are his sea blue eyes gleaming with hope. “I can’t. I’ve already signed, they’ll fucking kill me if I ran.”

Zayn glares at the ground, too scared that he’ll pounce on the older man if he looks into his face. “You— _without me_ —”

“I’m sorry,” Louis murmurs. And he does sound so. “There was nothing I could do. I have nothing if I _do_ end up in the normal world; no money, no experience. You have potential, Zayn. I’m always apologetic that I got you stuck in a shithole like this without your consent; I should’ve asked.”

“I was eight, Louis.” Zayn remembers, now. He was eight, his parents and sisters were dead, and he was bawling his soul out. Louis was eleven, at the time. “You were eleven.”

Louis had saved Zayn’s life. And they were brothers from then on, from the moment Louis stretched out a hand and said with his signature grin, _Hey, mate. Why so down_?

“I still regret it,” Louis mutters. “I should never have. Never.”

Zayn can see something like a droplet of tear start to form at the corner of Louis’ eyes, and he can’t stand this. Fuck, he never signed up for this when he sat down to have a conversation with Louis. Just one small talk, and now his entire life isn’t the same.

“Fuck you, Louis.”

He walks, _runs_ , from the scene with a clenched fist and trembling arms.

It’s everything he’s believed in, all that he’s ever had. And now it’s being taken away from him for his own good, and he doesn’t _know_ anymore.

—

The evening is chilly and the moon bright when he hears his name being screamed from out the dark. He reacts instantly, leaping up from where he’s leaning against a dumpster and reaching for his jackknife. He can’t tell who the shout belongs to because the noise gets lost in the clamor of the night, but he knows he’s heard it.

The name is yelled louder this time, loud enough for Zayn to detect its source. Just before he runs for it, however, he hesitates.

Maybe this is Louis looking for him, worried that he went and drowned himself or something. In that case, he doesn’t want to be found. It’s a childish thought and he knows it, but still. Zayn can’t help feeling betrayed and he wants Louis to know it too. Or maybe this is Niall, discussing Zayn and his future that consisted of legal things with Louis behind Zayn’s back. Zayn obviously wants nothing to do with either of them.

But then his name is cried for the third time, and his feet spring to action before his brain can act. If he isn’t going insane, then the owner of the voice is a certain ice cream man with a smiley face on his nametag. And what he hears along with Liam Payne is his weeping baby.

Oh, no. This can’t be good.

With beads of cold sweat climbing down his neck, Zayn sprints to the origin of the noise with the knife firm in his hand.

“Zayn! _Zayn!_ _ZAYN!_ ”

“Malik is with us, ice cream boy.” And then a strangled scream.

Shit. It’s little Liam alright, and it’s one of the guys from the hood he’s seen that’s draping a hand over his mouth. They haven’t got a weapon drawn, thank goodness. A wailing Taylor is lying neglected on the ground, and another guy is fishing out Liam’s wallet and belongings from a backpack he’s carrying.

Zayn acts before he can think, pouncing into Liam so the man covering his mouth is knocked to the wall.

“What the _fuck_?” The guy screams. “Who the fuck do you think you are, Malik?”

“ _Papa_!” Taylor shouts.

All is silent for a second. It’s a silent rule they have; they never mess with the gangs’ families or friends, because an internal conflict could put the entire gang in danger. They probably didn’t know Liam and Taylor were Zayn’s, ah, family. If he were to put it that way, because that’s kind of what it is.

“That’s your _kid_ ,” guy number one says in disbelief. “You’re fuckin’ _married_?”

“Let him go,” Zayn breathes harshly, pushing past guy number two who moves away without objection. Liam is pliant and falls into Zayn’s arms like a lost puppy. “You okay, little Leeyum?”

“Yeah,” he mumbles, but Zayn knows he isn’t.

“Answer my question,” guy number one demands. “ _You’re fuckin’ married_?”

A hundred thoughts slice through Zayn’s head, but none are the right ones. He knows he’s fucking up big time as he says, “Yeah. Meet Liam and Taylor.”

“ _Tay-lor_ ,” Taylor says in a sing-song voice that’s trembling from the tears. He’s an energetic kid, though, apparently doesn’t know how to hold a grudge. “’M Tay-lor,” he tells guy number one and guy number two, both of whom stand there frozen.

Finally, guy number two brushes his knees and shoves the stuff back in Liam’s backpack. “Sorry, man. We didn’t know.”

Guy number one is too brazen to apologize, but he still gives a light shrug of defeat. “C’mon, let’s clear. It’s too fuckin’ dark anyways.”

“Hold on,” Zayn shouts. He pulls his own wallet out from his jacket and fishes out all he’s got, which is a good plenty with the cash Niall handed him after the job. He was going to burn the wretched bills anyway, so he might as well take care of a problem. “Take this, just don’t let this spill.”

“Let what spill?” Guy number one asks as he snatches the notes from Zayn’s grip.

“You know what I mean,” Zayn says, lowering his tone. This works with almost everyone, what with the badass look his stubble provides, and the two guys are no exceptions. They nod solemnly and turn away, hopping off without a goodbye.

Zayn is aware that word will spread about his “husband” and “kid” soon enough, but this will postpone the event at least. Words Louis had said earlier starts seeping into his brain again, telling him that staying here will do him no good. _It’s almost impossible to run away from your past crimes, Zayn. You need to do it while you’re young_. What just happened doesn’t help him work things out at all, just screws with things even more.

“Papa!” Taylor calls, bringing Zayn back to reality. He runs to the kid, swooping him up from the ground to kiss his forehead. It’s covered in dirt and tastes funny.

“Dada, dada!” Taylor sounds excited in spite of the traces of tears on his cheeks. “Papa come back! Dada!”

“I did say I’ll see you soon,” Zayn says wryly.

“I remember,” Liam says. And then, “That’s a knife.”

“Fuck,” Zayn curses. Carefully putting Taylor back on the ground, he folds the blade back in and pushes the jackknife back in his jacket. “Sorry, I forgot I was holding it.”

“Don’t swear in front of Taylor,” Liam warns.

“Sorry,” Zayn repeats.

“So-wee,” Taylor giggles, ever the comic relief. “Papa is always so-wee.”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, and the word couldn’t feel dryer on his tongue. His eyes are fixed on Liam’s coffee brown pair as he says, “Sorry, Taylor. Sorry, little Leeyum.”

“He knew you,” Liam murmurs. “He knew you, didn’t he? He was one of you. Or you were one of them.” He sinks to the floor with his face buried in his arms as he whispers, “I don’t know anymore, shit. I don’t _know_. He was going to _kill us_.”

He sounds so much like Zayn’s own self that Zayn feels something erupt inside of him. Placing a finger on his lips so as to silence Taylor, he takes a seat beside Liam’s body and puts an arm around his shoulder that he doesn’t squirm away from. He starts to gently stroke Liam’s sideburns, savoring every touch of Liam’s warm skin on his. His voice is soft as he admits, “I don’t know, either.”

Liam’s lips are a little salty from the silent tears and a little cold from the chilly air when Zayn leans in to kiss it. It sits like a soft reminder at the bottom of Zayn’s stomach that it’s okay, he’s okay. They’re okay, maybe, if they were ever a thing.

“Zayn,” Liam whispers.

“Little Leeyum,” he sighs. “What are we going to do?”

What are they going to do? Zayn’s heart is hammering in his chest and little leprechauns are tap dancing in his head, and what are they going to do? Liam’s breaths are heavy on Zayn’s shoulder and Taylor is squirming from where he was told to stay put, and _what are they going to do_?

“I don’t have a place to stay for the night,” is what Zayn comes up with, after beating his brain for a minute. “Do you?”

“Taylor have!” Taylor cries enthusiastically, taking it as his cue to jump around again. “Dada and Taylor have. Can Papa come, too?”

Liam considers this, eyeing Zayn with this look that screams _no_ and _yes_ simultaneously. “Our flat is small.”

“I don’t have a flat,” Zayn says.

—

“What were you doing there?”

Liam’s flat is nice, really, despite Liam’s repetitive harangue about how it might not be big enough for everyone and how sorry he was for the fact. The wallpapers are a minty shade of cyan, with stripes of crayon across all walls with the exception of the kitchen. It’s tiny, Zayn has to admit, but it smells pretty nice. Liam serves them take-and-bake spinach lasagna and Taylor falls asleep on his plastic Batman plate, and is thus delivered to bed early. It’s only nine PM.

Liam makes a face at the question and swallows his last bite of lasagna. “Sorry?”

“What were you doing there? Out downtown so late at night, I mean.” Zayn pokes at the side of a lump of spinach and hopes Liam won’t notice it if he just pushes it off the table. But Liam’s been raising Taylor on his own for quite a time, and all single parents have that sixth sense.

“Eat your vegetables,” he orders, taking his and Taylor’s plates to the sink. “Uh, well. This is kind of embarrassing, but this morning, a guy was buying ice cream and he asked me about you. So I said that you seemed to be a good guy, and he went ‘alright’. He was going to go back home but I stopped him, for what reason I don’t know, and asked for your address. And tonight, Taylor was playing with his toys and he asked me when Papa was coming back—and I had to take him to see you, you know? Because as hypocritical as it ends up being, I don’t want my kid to know that sometimes, you need to lie.”

“I wasn’t lying,” Zayn protests indignantly. “I have very few friends as it is.”

“Of course you weren’t,” Liam says softly, and Zayn doesn’t know if it’s supposed to mock him, pacify him or something else. “So I was going to meet you, and this guy—Harry, I think he called himself—told me that you weren’t there, but was probably out there wandering around. I was going to give up and go home but Taylor just liked you too much, wouldn’t give in. So I had to look for you in the dark. And you know what happened next.”

“Yeah,” Zayn mutters. “Sorry about that.”

Liam raises an eyebrow. “About what?”

Zayn scoffs, shaking his head. “About everything. I know how you must feel. Well, I really don’t, but I can sort of guess. Here’s an excuse, though—I do it because—”

“Because family is family,” Liam finishes up for him. “I know that, I told you. I know that. I’ve known that for a long fucking time, why do people always think that I don’t?”

Liam sounds angry, is burning in rage as he spits out his words. And Zayn now realizes what Louis saw in Zayn—it’s what he sees in Liam right now. And really, do either of them actually have an idea of what family stands for? What _is_ home? What does anybody ever fight for?

“Will you let me stay for the night, Liam?” Zayn pleads. “I’ll sleep on the couch or even the floor.”

Liam nods wordlessly, but he’s looking at Zayn with a concerned expression. “You know Taylor’s getting attached. It’s not good for him. If you’re going to—well, if you’re going to go or keep on leaving and coming back. He’s only so young.”

“I’ll quit.”

The room seems to drown in its muted screams for what feels like an hour. Zayn is quiet because it’s not his turn to speak in the conversation, and Liam’s reason for his silence Zayn cannot and will never find out. It’s Liam that does end up breaking it.

“You don’t have to, Zayn. If it’s what you like doing. You don’t have to.”

“I don’t think it is,” Zayn admits quietly. “I don’t think it ever was.”

Liam shrugs. And, just as if he’s read Zayn’s mind, he doesn’t bring up the subject through the entire night as he makes Zayn’s provisional bed, a small air mattress that Liam says he bought for Taylor. Zayn can fit into it if he rolls his body up, though, and it’s better than taking power naps at studios in construction with a rifle slung over his shoulder. There were wild animals about near the park.

Just before Liam turns the lights out, Zayn reaches up to kiss his lips again. Now that Zayn lets his tongue linger on Liam’s for longer than necessary, he can taste all the thirty flavors of ice cream that Liam’s car offers. But the prominent taste that lingers on his tongue after he pulls away is the strawberry and mocha, the bittersweet harmony of the broken yet happy.

“Is that okay?” Zayn asks carefully, licking his lips.

“I think so,” Liam gasps, his expression shielded by the darkness that’s flooded the room as the light was switched off.

Zayn nods although he knows Liam can’t see it. If his hand stays on Liam’s cheek too long for it to be safe, that’s nobody’s business but his own.

—

Zayn wakes up at the break of dawn, a force of habit. His body feels as heavy as ever and his eyelids refuse to open, but he’s fundamentally incapable of going back to sleep and he knows it.

Groaning, he lifts his frame and crawls to the kitchen, getting a cup of tap water. It tastes a bit like piss and stale yogurt, and Zayn knits his brows at the bitter aftertaste. He’s considering maybe shaking Liam up or sneaking out the flat when a small hand tugs at the tail of his shirt, startling him.

“Taylor?”

The little boy nods, puts his arms up for Zayn to lift him off the ground. Zayn complies, scooping the body in his arms and adjusting him so Zayn’s arms don’t give. Taylor’s got a pretty light physique, but it’s not easy to hold a constantly wriggling baby in his arms while trying to find his way around a flat without being rude or poking around.

Liam’s room is right to the corner of the living room, and his build is thrown carelessly on the mattress without a blanket. Zayn predicts that Liam plopped down on his bed and fell asleep before he could remember to at least grab a beach towel or something. He leans down to shake Liam awake when he notices the evident traces of tears on his cheeks and the slightly damp cover of the mattress.

Sighing, he bends down to plant a nice little peck on Liam’s cheek, and leaves to grab the sleeping bag from the living room and spread it over Liam’s sleeping body. He sits down on the unstable wooden stool in the kitchen when that’s done, only to have Taylor poke at his chin and giggle sleepily.

“Thought you were asleep,” Zayn chuckles. He gives the little buddy a kiss too, a quick one on the forehead. “Well, what do you wanna do?”

“Hungry,” Taylor says, forehead creased in deep thought. “Taylor sleepy yesterday, so Taylor sleep. Now ‘m hungry.”

Zayn nods in understanding. “Dada’s asleep, though, so I think we’ll have to make ourselves food. Hey, d’you think we could make enough for all three of us? It’ll be a surprise for Dada.”

“Yeah,” Taylor shouts, eyes gleaming in excitement. He quickly brings his hands to his mouth and whispers, “ _Shh_. We _shh_ so Dada sleep.”

“That’s a smart boy,” Zayn says. “Let’s see—what about pancakes? Do you like pancakes? I think we have ingredients for pancakes.”

“Pancakes!” Taylor nods enthusiastically. He then climbs off of Zayn’s arms and toddles to the cabinet squashed between the microwave and the stove and produces a bat-shaped cookie cutter. “ _Batman_ pancakes.”

“Ingenious,” Zayn says in glee. “C’mon, mate; let’s get started.”

—

Liam manages to look befuddled, cranky and blissful all at the same time as he climbs out of his bedroom in a zombie state to discover his son with an apron on. “No, no!” Taylor commands, pushing Liam’s puzzled body back into the room. “Not time, no. Dada sleep, okay? Dada sleep. ‘S _surprise_ , Dada have to sleep.”

“It’s alright, Taylor,” Zayn calls from the stove, flipping the pancake. “Come and help me cut the cake, yeah? Liam, you can go grab a cup of water.”

Distracted by the idea of cutting the pancakes into little Batman logos, Taylor hurries away. Zayn offers Liam a timid smile as he hands him a cup of boiled water—the running water with its metallic taste couldn’t be trusted. Zayn is convinced that it’s filtered blood sucked in from the graveyard, but his imagination has never done him much good. “Good morning. I used all the flour in your house, hope that’s okay.”

“When did you wake up?” Liam asks, frowning.

“Dunno; there wasn’t a clock. ‘Bout five AM, I think.” Taylor is struggling to reach the countertop, so he gives him a lift and a gentle landing throughout which Taylor squeals in Gibberish. “There you go, Taylor. Be careful with the cutter, okay? Call me if it’s scary.”

“’M not _scared_ ,” Taylor squeaks indignantly. Zayn says a fond _okay, if you say so_ , and only then does the offended little patissier go back to his momentous pancake-cutting.

“You’ve been making pancakes since dawn?” Liam asks, like he can’t believe it.

Zayn shrugs, sucks a bit of dough on his finger. “You looked in peace, couldn’t wake you. Oh, and I almost forgot to say; you didn’t have sugar, or I couldn’t find it, so the pancake will taste like shit. But it’ll be a bit better with syrup, I’m sure. I think its shelf life is pretty close to done anyway, so we might as well use it all up. I found leftover ice cream in your fridge, this is gonna be the biggest feast.”

“Biggest feast of _pancakes_ ,” Liam grumbles, but he’s got this giant grin on his face that he doesn’t seem to be able to wipe off. “And I told you not to swear in front of Taylor.”

“Sorry,” Zayn says with a roll of his eyes. Taylor giggles on the counter. Zayn can see out the corner of his eyes that Taylor is mushing up the corners of the bat’s left ear, but pretends not to see. “Better be doing a neat job on those bats, buddy. They get really upset when someone crushes them.”

“I got it,” Taylor says, and Zayn _swears_ he catches his little brown eyes rolling. “Taylor _got_ it.”

Liam bites his lip as he watches them for a while, then says, “Thank you, guys. Both of you.” He grants Taylor an affectionate kiss on the lips to which the little boy responds with a _You’re welcome, Dada_ , and, a little shyly, leans into Zayn’s cheek to brush his lips only so barely on Zayn’s cheek.

“Can I get a kiss on the lips, too?” Zayn asks cheekily. Liam freezes for a second but he then musters up the courage, nodding and pressing a real one on Zayn’s lips. Zayn thinks that he will definitely dream about this at night while Taylor goes _eww_ from the counter, sticking out his tongue.

The feast ends up being pretty great. The pancake does indeed taste like shit but the slightly burnt dough goes nicely with the ice cream and syrup. Taylor inhales about four bats before he complains about a stomachache, a headache and bruises all over his body. Zayn is about to get genuinely worried but Liam informs him that Taylor is only being a crybaby. The little boy doesn’t respond too well to that, but he forgets about the insult when Zayn adds another scoop of ice cream on his plate.

Maybe Zayn should never have given him that last bit of ice cream, because soon Taylor turns pale and throws up in the sink. He helps Liam clean it up, apologizing every chance he gets. Liam tells him that it’s fine, it’s Taylor’s nap time anyway. Taylor throws an even bigger fit at that but is silenced by the hypnotizing baby mobile Liam summons. He collapses to sleep in a few seconds, eyes never leaving the floating Batmobile before they close.

There’s an awkward but oddly comfortable silence after that. Zayn breaks it with a “Well. You’ve got a cozy flat.”

They’re sitting on Liam’s bed, the frames all discarded in case Taylor ran into them. The room is quite small and Zayn doesn’t get any personal space, his arm brushing Liam’s every time he moves. It’s nice, though, the heat.

Liam scoffs. “Please. I can barely afford this, to be real.”

Zayn raises an eyebrow. “You do get plenty of customers in that ice cream car, though, don’t you? Are you saving up, then?”

“It’s only the summer that people actually want ice cream,” Liam says. “Save up? I haven’t got a pound for the future. This month’s rent is the last I can pay, since the summer is almost ending.”

“Oh?” Zayn doesn’t know what to say to that. “What—what’re you planning, then, after that happens?”

Liam shrugs, buries his face in his hands. “I don’t know, Zayn. I can quit night classes and try to get a part time shift in the time, but nobody’s willing to hire a guy that slept with a stripper in his drunk mind and got an unplanned child.” His eye pokes out from behind his fingers, and Zayn can tell from the distance that it’s watery again. “Sometimes I feel like I want to start this life over, y’know? Maybe you will. Just. I’ll still want Taylor with me, of course, and a few other people, but—I just want to restart. Rewind. Become another person with a different background.”

That forces Zayn to think of Louis, Niall and everything that he’s trying to ignore for the moment, and he can’t have that. Zayn squeezes his eyes shut and shoos the unwanted thoughts away from his only secure haven that is his head. Amid the ruckus in his brain that is an unexpected coup d'état of neglected thoughts, he never has the time to think twice as he says, “You want to kill yourself?”

Liam is silent for a chilling moment. Zayn is leaping to change the subject but closes his lips when he sees Liam nod slowly. “Maybe. Sometimes. I’ve considered it. But it’s too early for Taylor.”

“Too early for me, too,” Zayn says, before he can stop himself. “I’ve only just met you, little Leeyum. I don’t want you to fade away.”

Liam huffs what sounds like a small laughter that’s been broken in half and sewed back together again. “You—you come out of nowhere. And you disappear into nowhere, and you—you mess with my brain _so much_ , you can’t possibly understand. Like Batman, and. _Dammit_.”

That cheesy statement shouldn’t pull a string at Zayn’s heart, but it does anyway. And since when did Zayn start caring about rules, right? What happened to the life of no principles, no thoughts and no cares?

(And no choices. None at the end of the day.)

Zayn doesn’t know what he’s doing. All he knows is that the quiet promises are the only ones he wants to keep as he knocks over Liam’s body to attack him into a thick embrace. His heart is screaming in his chest and Liam is scarcely breathing as Zayn curls into him. His skin is burning from all the places that they’re touching and it’s sort of nice, sort of frightening.

Liam nods through Zayn’s loving touches, and it takes Zayn all his effort to not release his own river of grief as he kisses away all the little hints of tears on Liam’s face. He wonders what Liam wants, what he really needs. A hug, like he’d noted earlier? Or a little more than that, maybe.

—

They’re lying on the mattress on their sides, their faces much too close in this angle. Liam makes him dizzy and Zayn needs to find a way out, because Liam’s got a child and he’s not Zayn’s.

Zayn’s brain is working and reality is a bit far away from him, as it always is when he’s thinking. Liam sees that, grunts in annoyance, and pushes him into a kiss to cut him off from the realm of thoughts. His tongue is soft in Zayn’s mouth as they close their lips around the kiss, a soft one that’s colored all brown and peppered with strips of old fashion magazines. Liam’s hand is placed with hesitance on Zayn’s abdomen, sweaty and trembling against the skin. Zayn can practically smell his nervousness.

“Do you think we could?” Liam sounds hopeful, like a child bouncing up and down on Santa’s lap.

“Taylor is taking a _nap_ ,” Zayn murmurs in disbelief. “Are you sure—?”

“We won’t wake him,” Liam begs. He looks desperate for a kiss, a touch, for _something_. “Please.”

Liam’s pupils are blown wide and the thick chocolate of his eyes are melting into Zayn as he mouths at Zayn’s jaw, frantic for a response. Zayn nods, finally, and slips his hand under the fabric of Liam’s shirt that is too thin for the weather. Zayn remembers to buy him a new sweater as he pulls it off of him.

“How long’s it been, since?” Zayn asks, careful to word his sentences just right. “Have you had anyone after her?” They both know what Zayn means by ‘her’, the woman that gave birth to Taylor Payne.

“None,” Liam says, shaking his head. He fumbles with Zayn’s belt to get it to let go. “Nobody.”

“A few years is a very long time,” Zayn comments. He can feel the goosebumps on Liam’s chest where his fingers meet the skin. “Are you sure you’re not rushing? If you’re just scared that I’ll run, I really won’t—”

“I know you won’t.” Liam’s breaths are sharp and there’s an erection wrapped in his pants. “ _Please_ ,” he begs again, and Zayn really can’t deny him the world.

“Lube?”

Liam shifts to reach the cabinet, and the room is so small that it doesn’t take much of his effort. He manages to keep a palm glued onto Zayn while pulling out a string of condoms and lube. Zayn doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at how scared Liam looks, how afraid he is that Zayn might stand up and walk away.

He puts a hand on Liam’s and pulls them closer together. He’s planning on staying. He repeats that in his head as Liam rolls around so that Zayn has better access to his backside. He’s planning on staying.

“Oh.”

Liam’s breaths get heavier as Zayn’s fingers work to tug at his pants. He gives Liam’s curve a soft peck as the dark material pools around his ankles, can physically feel Liam shudder. He then slicks up his index finger with lube and circle’s Liam’s rim, earning a breathy moan.

“Get on with it,” Liam urges.

Zayn tuts, sticking out a tongue. “Little Leeyum, since when were you so needy?”

“I’m not— _oh_.” Liam’s breath gets caught in his throat as Zayn gingerly slides in his finger. He’s so tight, his walls closing up on the unfamiliar coldness.

“You’re not what?” Zayn asks. “Needy? Or little?”

“N—” He audibly bites back a whimper as Zayn adds a second finger, starts moving his digits in and out. “Neither,” he gasps. “’M n-neither.”

Zayn laughs because it’s funny. He’s hoping it’d cheer Liam up a little, drag him out of his pool of depression. Liam buries his head into the mattress in embarrassment but Zayn pulls it back around, just to take a look at how red and hot Liam looks like this.

“It’s not even—not even funny,” Liam breathes. He’s having a hard time forming sentences, Zayn knows, because Zayn’s fingers are exploring inside him now and it’s usually hard to talk in given situation.

Zayn keeps chuckling, licks a line up Liam’s shoulder just because. “It really _has_ been two years, yeah?”

“Three,” Liam corrects, or attempts to, anyway. “Because it starts from—from zero, it starts from—”

“I’m fucking a college boy,” Zayn giggles. He doesn’t know why, but Liam is all flushed and anxious and it’s the funniest thing Zayn’s ever seen. Liam manages to be both adorable and flaming hot at the same time, and it’s infuriating. Zayn curls down to press a soft kiss on his inner thigh, where the skin is soft and tender. It arouses a legitimate _squeal_ out of Liam, and Zayn laughs even harder at that. He doesn’t think he’s laughed so genuinely before in his life.

(The funniest thing is that Zayn has been tottering on the edge of acceptance for such a long time. And when he finally decides to open his eyes, he finds himself with Liam in his arms.)

“Shut _up_ ,” Liam groans, but Zayn knows he’s blushing like a freak. “Just—hurry up, just.”

Zayn stretches up and whispers in Liam’s ear, “Gimme the magic word, naughty boy.”

“ _Please_ ,” he begs. “Please, please, please, Zayn.”

His face, tilted so that Zayn can get a good look at it, is flushed bright in need and his lips are pink from the incessant biting. Who is Zayn to say no to that face? In the rush, Zayn hastily zips down his fly, only to get it tangled with his boxers. He grunts in frustration, and Liam finds it hilarious. It’s payback, Zayn guesses.

“Clumsy,” Liam comments through giggles. Zayn swats him away with an _Oh please_ , but he can’t help the smile.

See? It’s worked. Liam is happy now, at least for the moment, and that’s the way such a blessed being should stay.

“Gotta stop laughing,” Zayn commands, slipping into a serious tone. His voice is still a bit scratchy from laughing and he doesn’t think he’s fooling anyone, but whatever. “Your son is taking a nap. Also, I’m adjusting my dick on your asshole.”

Liam almost chokes on his saliva. Zayn’s cock is hard on his stomach and Liam’s hole is squelching with the lube when Zayn pushes the cheeks together, nice and wet. His legs are tight around Zayn’s frame, both terrified of being separated. Zayn circles his hand on Liam’s back to a reassuring rhythm that would remind one of home, summer and discoveries of photo albums in the attic.

Zayn is gentle with him, Liam, unlike how he is with the men he picks up at clubs. He inserts the head so slowly that Liam probably doesn’t even feel a thing, his hands resting on either sides of Liam’s waist. He’s guessing it hurts, from the small whimper Liam attempts to bite back. He does what he can to numb the pain, trails a line of kisses down Liam’s stomach.

“Tell me if it hurts too much, yeah?” Zayn whispers, when he’s in base-deep. Liam only whines in response and ruts against Zayn’s pelvis, which Zayn takes as permission to take a step further.

The noise Liam makes when Zayn starts moving is fascinating and enchanting at the same time, and it only makes him want more. He feels like he’s committing a sin, ruining Liam Payne that’s practically a virgin (on Zayn’s standards, anyway, let’s not get further into that), and that’s kind of the enticing aspect of it.

“’M gonna fuck you, now,” Zayn says, using his low sex voice. “You’re good, right?”

“Yes,” Liam breathes. “C’mon, just—please.”

Liam moans like a darned _slut_ when Zayn starts pounding into him, and Zayn _knows_ that the entire neighborhood must be listening intently. He doesn’t care; let them hear, let them know.

He holds tight onto Liam’s hips, nails dug into place on either side. Liam’s arms are coiled around Zayn’s body like a lifeline, and he takes Zayn’s thrusts with this obscene lift of the hip that makes Zayn want to scream because _what even is Liam_? What is he made of? Where does he come from? What is this—this _thing_ —that makes him shine like a sex god, droplets of sweat resting in the dip above his ass, that also makes his skin heat up baby pink with blossoms of roses lightening his puppy cheeks?

Liam opens his mouth to say something, but nothing other than heavy pants and incoherent sentences come out.

“Z-Zayn, I. I—”

“Can’t hear you, little Leeyum.” Their breaths and hot gasps fill the room to the brim, just a droplet from spilling over. “Speak louder.”

Liam brings his hand to his cock and starts tugging. Zayn wraps his fingers over Liam’s and aids in the process, going back and forth to the beat of Bille Jean. _And mama always told me, be careful who you love. And be careful what you do, because the lie becomes the truth._

“I said I—” Liam bites his tongue, whether to swallow in his moans or cut off his words Zayn doesn’t know. “Nothing, I just— _ahh_.”

“Tell me,” Zayn urges. He hates it when people do that.

“It’s nothing—just. Just— _oh_ —stupid.”

“You were gonna say something.” Zayn is moving faster now, his head fogging up in the smell of sex and nerve system growing numb. “T-tell me, c’mon.”

“I love.” It’s more a hiccup than it is actual words stringed to a sentence, and Zayn’s heart starts making a scene in his ribcage. All the laughter and jokes are gone from his head and it’s only that word that sits in the center of the void, going love, love, love. “I—love—I’m gonna— _I love you_.”

( _She says I am the one. But the kid is not my son_.)

It shoots a string of electricity down his spine, the last phrase, and it’s all it takes to make Zayn lose control. He’s frozen with his load spilling before he knows it, clutching tight onto Liam for dear life. Liam follows suit with a final yank, stripes of white coloring their hands.

This is messed up, and _Liam loves Zayn_.

—

They hold each other like that as their highs subside, sweaty fingers clinging onto their bodies. Only after his sanity returns is Zayn capable of realizing how nice their skin tones look next to each other, a rich tan next to an easily reddening apricot. He squeezes Liam’s shaking hand and gives him a nervous smile.

“We’ll be fine,” he says. “You and me, we’ll be fine.”

(Zayn hates, hates, _hates_ making promises, and he _despises_ that look on Liam’s face, the sad smile and the blank eyes of a man who’s witnessed the death of Jesus.)

For how long have they known each other, anyway? This is fucked up, is what it is. Not the sex, but the confession of love and gooey promises and—and _this_.

To support the statement above, Billie Jean pierces through the calm silence in the air before Zayn can tell Liam that _I love you too_. (That one would’ve been _way_ out of line. Zayn has absolutely nothing to back him up.)

“Who is it?” Liam asks, an anxious tone to his voice. “Don’t leave, Zayn.”

“It’s—” It’s Niall, the Irishman who believed the government had access to all ‘private’ conversations had on phones. Zayn’s got about ten unread texts from him, and it must be after those that Niall decided to take the dangerous approach. “No one you’ve got to worry about. Just a guy I know.”

“From?” Liam’s hand clings to Zayn’s arm as he says this, like he’s scared that too many questions will scare Zayn away.

“Work,” Zayn replies with a shrug. He knows that Liam knows, and yet he can’t spit it out. It’s become something like a taboo, what Zayn is and how terminal his life technically is. “It’s not important.”

“It must be,” Liam murmurs.

Zayn scowls, fist tightening to his side. His expression softens as soon as he sees the start in Liam’s face, though, and he digs his head in Liam’s chest so his emotions can’t escape, so that he can keep them buried and locked underneath the ocean sand and never let it see light. Just like the way things always were. Because as brave as Zayn acts, he’s scared of many things; one of them is changes.

“You scare me,” Zayn whispers.

Liam is silent for a while. “I thought you weren’t scared of anything.”

“I’m scared of a lot of things, babe.” He’s scared of open doors, the scent of blood and the adrenaline that shoots through his bones because of it. He’s scared of angry men, broken beer bottles and screams in the middle of the night with subsequent ‘fireworks’. But an ice cream man with a stripper’s child is his most recent nightmare, all the small kisses in between carving their way into his skin like branding iron.

“Taylor thinks you’re Batman. And Batman isn’t scared of anything.”

Zayn laughs at that, a breathy huff that barely lasts. “Batman isn’t afraid of the night or a psycho serial killer. But he’s scared dead of Gotham City.” Because it’s all he’s fighting for, right? Because once it’s gone, it’s never back again, and he can’t _have_ that. And it’s too late to turn back, because that’s nothing different from letting it disappear.

Really, all a hero can do is watch his city burn down. Or lose his occupation as a hero, because a town no one has the guts to attack needs no protector with a mask. Zayn thinks that maybe, that’s why everyone secretly wants to be the bad guy. That’s how Zayn used to be, anyway. He wonders if changing will do him any good, if it will actually make him or anyone else happier.

Zayn is about to open his mouth and say something when he’s interrupted by a loud cry of “ _Dada_?” from Taylor’s bedroom. He wonders if it saved him from a difficult speech or interrupted him from an important one.

“Be right back,” Liam says. He scrambles to throw on his clothes and turns around to check on Zayn before he goes. Zayn chuckles at the tense muscles in his face.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he reminds the apartment. “I have nowhere to _go_. Honest.”

See, Zayn’s lived with no rules for such a long time. It’s not necessarily his style, although it has become one through routine. And he thinks that it’s time he broke the silent rule that he never made promises, and that he never kept them. (And that he never stayed for anyone or anywhere.)

If he were to be unaccepted, he would be an actual outsider. A proper renegade with a purpose for his rebellion. A town and townspeople to protect.

He gingerly opens up the most recent text from Niall and furrows his brow. “ _Headquarters moving. Last chance to burn ur proof or u r screwed. You need to wrap this up, Malik_.”

Really, Zayn does need to wrap it up. The realization strikes home. Not the thing he had going on with the Payne family, the thing that had gone on for about approximately a month now; he needs to wrap up the business with what he had forced himself to believe was his family, something he had had faith in for sixteen years of his life. It never deserved all the things he gave away.

He cleans himself up and stretches his arms. There’s no time, there’s never any time. Risks, there are always risks. But the happy endings were given to those who played the game.

“Liam,” he calls, hoping he’s loud enough for him to hear. “I’ll go out to grab something for lunch. It’ll be just an hour at most.”

Zayn can hear Liam scrambling out the bedroom to object, but Zayn drowns it all out. All he hears before he slips out the door are Taylor’s angry squeaks.

The guilt doesn’t drown him, though. Probably because Zayn is very aware that he’s coming back, for real this time.

—

He’s breathless by the time he stumbles into the wall of the abandoned building that was the gang’s original headquarter. His eyes widen when he notices that something sticky is against his hands, and he pulls them from the wall to see that they’re covered in slimy gray. He quickly wipes it off on his jeans.

They’ve cemented the entire building, even where the door used to be. A few men with tough shoulders could easily crack the opening, but Zayn’s sure that they probably cleaned the place out spotless.

“My man, Quiffy!”

Zayn turns around at the epithet and sees nobody other than Harry Styles. He’s got cotton gloves on his hands and is fully protected in a laborer’s armor, cement and dirt staining the tough fabric.

“You really are moving,” Zayn murmurs. It’s strange, to see evidence of it right before his eyes. This is probably what it feels like to leave a hometown he was never really fond of. A home was home, and family was family.

“So, ah, you’ve figured it out, then?” Harry’s lips stretch into a line. “I’m sorry about that, really. Like, the lying and stuff. And I know why you didn’t like me, I think you always knew in the back of your head that I was supposed to take over. Which is quite funny, because I don’t know shit about shit. I deal good, though, and I can be fast when I have to be. So you don’t gotta worry much ‘bout family, really, ‘cause I assure you that I can—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Zayn says, waving it away. That’s not important. Liam must be worried, and Zayn can’t afford for him to lose more faith in Zayn. “Are you gonna keep my secret?”

Harry makes a face. “You running out? Sure, I’ll keep quiet. But I don’t know what I’ll do when Boss lashes out; it’s no work to find someone in a town like this. The rest of the gang isn’t as friendly as me.”

“Not _that_. Liam and Taylor. You won’t let them know, right? Who they are, what they do.”

“Of course not,” Harry says. “I can make sure the guys around me don’t, as well, if you’re so worried.” He looks genuinely offended that he has to verbalize this. His immediate response is so reassuring that when Harry pulls off the glove for a handshake, Zayn gives the man a wide hug. It stinks like sewer and sweat and some of the dirt gets in his tongue. He spits it out, disgusted. Harry laughs good-naturedly.

“Where are the others, then?” Zayn asks.

“Getting ready,” Harry replies. “Niall sent me to stand watch, in case you were only pretending to ignore his texts.”

“He would,” Zayn says, smiling a little.

See, the family thing he had had in his head wasn’t entirely a dream Zayn was trying to squeeze into his reality. Niall could be the annoying little brother that secretly saves, and later threatens you with, your embarrassing selfies. Louis was the brother that was only a year older that kept trying to act like he was Father, making orders for this and that while procrastinating on his homework. And then Harry was the second removed cousin or something that always stuck around for some reason, gave you a big, irritating smile whenever you asked what the Hell he was doing here. Liam could be Dada, Zayn was Papa, and Taylor was their little baby buddy.

“Have a nice life.” It’s all Zayn can come up with, the manliest goodbye his brain is capable of generating. Harry flashes him a wide smile in return. Like Zayn always likes to say, Harry’s not such a bad guy after all.

—

The thing with Harry went well, much better than Zayn had thought it out in his head. So he’s expecting his encounter with Louis and Niall to be just as pleasant, and is quite taken aback when it turns out that huh, he’s wrong. Mostly in the sense that they aren’t even there.

“Fuck,” Zayn murmurs. This is different from what Harry told him. It’s not just Niall and Louis— _no_ one is there at the warehouse where stuff is supposed to be being packed. And said stuff isn’t there, either. It’s a big empty hall Zayn is standing in, and he _knows_ something’s messed up.

“ _There_ ’s Runner Boy.”

Zayn twists around. He’s faced with Number one, the guy that had been harassing Liam and Taylor. His instinct is to lash out with a fist, but he holds himself back. Number one isn’t alone. He’s with Number two, and Number three, and so many more. Niall and Louis are part of the crowd, too, Zayn is heartbroken to realize. Their faces are pale with nervousness, eyes darting everywhere to meet everyone’s but Zayn’s befuddled pair.

“How’d you—?” is what Zayn’s throat manages. He does well to sound much braver than he feels, but he doesn’t think he convinces anyone.

Number one snarls. He pushes Zayn to the wall with a swing of his arm, the punch paralyzing Zayn’s torso for a split second. “I’m not fuckin’ _stupid_ , you aren’t gonna buy me with a few funny pounds. Boss knows.”

It was two hundred pounds, which aren’t that few nor funny, but Zayn decides that it’s not the time to be smart. _Boss knows_. Ah, isn’t that excellent. This is getting big, too big for Zayn to keep track of. There was that one guy, something like Peter, that had attempted to slide away. What Zayn remembered of the incident was a blur, because human minds tend to try and erase all the painful memories, but he could recall the gist of it.

They’d beaten him up, black and blue and purple and red and then nothing. The last time Zayn had seen the guy, he was being carried outside in a sack.

“That’s. That’s utterly brilliant, mate. I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

He slaps himself in his head as soon as the words escape him. His smart mouth is going to get him killed one day, and he’s got more to worry about than just his simple self if he doesn’t make it out of this one.

“Don’t be sassy, Malik.” Number one spits on the ground, establishing his prominent authority. “You know what’s good for you.”

Zayn nods, because he really does. Number one laughs as he stretches out to pull at his sideburns, a taunting move that pains his pride more than it does his body. There are way too many people, though, and only two out of the entire gang are on his side. Zayn was never a guy to be hopping around making friends, but maybe he should’ve given things a try.

His brain, the only thing that’s been keeping him alive till now, works full speed to find a way out. He’s got his front, right and left clearly covered—he can give it a go and swing his arm, but he isn’t a magician. His back is blocked by the wall of a great container truck. Number one is narrowing his eyes at Zayn and his fist moves slightly to his side, preparing for the upcoming throw of a fist.

Zayn formulates a plan, a pretty ingenious one if he does say so himself. It’s a long shot and also his only.

The expected punch is thrown and Zayn ducks. Number one misses him by an inch as Zayn rolls through the gap of his legs, tripping him over. The crowd would’ve cheered had they been respectable audience, but they aren’t is the thing. Number two screeches like a pterodactyl and then the gang’s up and at Zayn, taking their temporary leader’s defeat as a cue for the hounds to be unleashed. That’s young and immature men for you, Zayn guesses.

Refusing to acknowledge the pain lest his body doubled over, Zayn grits his teeth through the bodies being thrust at him. He twists around and leaps for the container truck, a practically impossible move with what many men is pouncing on him.

His foot lands on a dent where the truck’s side is crumpled, and he uses it to bounce himself up and flip over into the container. It happens in a breath and he lands on his face.

A fog of dust clouds his vision as he collapses in the heaps of stolen furniture, and he has to bite his tongue to hold in his cough. The more he does cough, the more dust he inhales, and the cycle only got worse that way. He hurries to pull the opening shut before any of the other ones can think to make it in.

He can feel the gang banging at the wall, the force practically shaking the entire truck. He has to hurry. Clumsy and clammy fingers refusing to obey him, it takes him a few seconds to get his phone out of his pocket, but he knows what to do from there.

“ _Emergency. Ice cream truck w life essentials n Taylor. To Green St. 26, BIG TRUCK. ASAP. Please, NO BRAKES!!_ ”

He stares at the text for a second before he adds a hesitant heart emoji at the end. He sends it before he has the time to change his mind.

The banging outside gets louder. He knows from common sense that right now, the people out there are no different from crowds at gladiator fights, laughing at the incompetence of the stripped warrior against the majestic lion. He’ll be beaten to death like Peter had been, his body dragged out the gang but never himself. It’s not an idea Zayn would normally have been against, really, but he can’t afford that for the moment. Not with that promise he’s made with Liam.

—

Zayn is cowering in fright under his fort of chairs and bedframes. He’d thought that he’d already hit rock bottom, but it turns out he has another mile to go. The hungry crowd has gone mad for entertainment, and they’ve taken out their last measures. He can hear knives scraping at the container and gunshots being fired. Even worse, oxygen is getting scarce. The thought of asphyxiating to death in a container truck isn’t exactly appealing, but Zayn realizes that it’s the most plausible ending in the story of his life. So much for no principles and free souls.

His vision is getting foggier and it’s becoming harder and harder to breathe. The darkness choking him, fingers wrapped around his throat with its plastic nails digging into his flesh.

And then he hears it. Only so faintly, but he’ll recognize this sound from miles away. It’s Liam’s ice cream truck and Taylor’s wails of annoyance. It sounds like a choir of cherubs around angels descending from Heaven to Zayn’s ears.

With his dizzy head struggling to keep up with him, he quickly climbs up onto a desk and grasps the lever to the container. One, two, three, four, _five._

He pushes it down, and, tuning out the happy screams of the audience surrounding the truck, breathes in a sip of the sweet open air. He can clearly hear Number one’s beastly shriek in the background, but he’s not too worried about that. He starts to climb a giant wardrobe as he keeps counting in his head. Six, seven.

“Get the fuck down from there,” Number one commands. His nose is red with hints of blood and he’s got a gun in his hand, but Zayn knows no one is willing to shoot him right now. A gang’s a gang, and no one’s brave enough to destroy the furniture that is technically the boss’s.

Someone throws a rock at him, apparently deeming that more appropriate than bullets. Well, Zayn certainly sees where he’s coming from. And then other things, like cans and bottles and magazine rolls, start flying at him as he hides behind the shelter the wardrobe doors provides him. It won’t stand for too long, though, the hinges are already ready to fall apart.

Eight, nine, _ten_.

The ice cream truck honks. From up here, Zayn can see the men swearing and spitting on the ground, making that face that would make any ice cream man turn around and never talk about the scene again. Incredulously, Liam doesn’t halt.

“What the _fuck_?” Number one screams, falling to the ground as he barely dodges the truck. Liam steps on the brake only then, realizing he could’ve killed a man. “Ice cream boy— _this is Malik’s trick_.”

It sure as Hell is, because that’s when Zayn pushes out of the wardrobe and jumps onto the ceiling of the truck. “Go, GO, _GO_!”

Liam obeys instantly, stepping on the pedal. Zayn almost rolls off of the truck as he attempts to dodge a rock, but he’s already gotten the hang of this and won’t let anything happen. Swiftly sliding down to the trunk and banging the door open, he throws himself into the ice truck. The raging screams of the gang is music to Zayn’s ears, because nothing is gruesome before a man granted with victory.

The people he’d called family had been throwing stones and sticks at him just moments ago, and now Zayn feels home in an ice cream truck with crying baby sound effects. Ah, life. Who ever knew?

“Where am I going?” Liam screams frantically from the driver’s seat. The shouting and screaming is fading away, but it’s not enough to make Liam feel safe. It’s not enough to let Zayn feel safe, either, but he thinks he’s doing an okay job at hiding said fact.

“Out of this warehouse, obviously. The next depends,” Zayn answers. He jumps onto the rows of ice cream where he can meet Liam’s eyes through the mirror. Liam’s eyes are puffy from concern and Taylor looks red enough to throw up. He stretches out to pick up the Batman car seat and stores it in the back with the ice cream, making room for himself and Taylor on the shotgun seat. “How did you interpret the phrase ‘life essentials’?”

“’Life essentials’,” Liam deadpans. “I brought my wallet, my everything. My air mattress. Sleeping bags. I thought you were going to be _killed_ , what was going on there?”

“Papa!” Taylor chips in. “What Papa do? Why do they scream?”

“They scream ‘cause they’re mean people,” Zayn explains. “And um—I’ll tell you later, yeah, when Taylor’s asleep. But I really appreciate you doing this for me, honestly.”

“I didn’t _want_ to,” Liam says, clenching his teeth. He sounds serious. “I can’t afford to get engaged in criminal activity, I’ve got a child and responsibilities that come along with it. It was just the thought that if I didn’t show up, it’d technically be _me_ that was killing you, and Taylor likes you so much, and—”

“And you, you like me too, right?” Zayn asks carefully. When Liam stares straight before him and doesn’t say anything, he adds, “Because _I_ like you. Like a lot, Liam. You know that, you’ve known that. _We_ ’ve known that, right?”

“Yeah,” Liam admits. “I think I—I like you too.”

“I like Papa three,” Taylor says enthusiastically. His voice cracks at the end; he’s still a sleepy baby boy.

Zayn keeps stroking the side of the baby’s face, and Taylor yawns against his chest. He must be pretty tired, the little one, what with his nap having been disturbed. “That’s good. Because, as crazy as this is, I think we might be able to make it work.”

“Make what work?” Liam looks genuinely irritated. “You never answered my first question. Where are we going?”

“Take the highway. I’ll take over when you get tired.” Zayn puts his hand on Liam’s, providing the driver with a big, hopeful smile. “How many more days do you have left of your rent? And the college thing?”

“About a week, I think,” Liam says. “Why?”

“I was thinking that—well, since we’re kind of screwed anyway, we could move. _We_ could.”

“Move where?” Liam’s brows are screwed together. “With what money?”

“Anywhere—somewhere far away, where no one knows us and we can start things all over again without taking the drastic measure.” Zayn’s fingers are moving faster against Taylor’s skin. He’s nervous, and he doesn’t think he was this nervous when Number one’s fist was an inch away from his face. “I was pretty good at English back when I was young. I took this one year course at the college because Louis kept forcing me into it, and I’m sure I’ll be able to contact the professor I had then to ask for a recommendation. He liked me. And I can kind of draw, if I do say so myself. If worst comes to worst, I could always strip.”

Liam laughs at the last joke, but there’s something like disbelief in his voice. “With what money?” he repeats.

“Bail money,” Zayn replies. “You know, it was expected that I’ll end up at the jug now or later, doing what I did. I saved up for myself. I’ve got a good enough amount to rent us a house for a few months, get Taylor to a daycare. I can work night shifts, too, I forgot to mention—I never slept more than four hours on weekdays, I swear. I can do anything. I’ll make this work, yeah?”

“ _Bail money_ ,” Liam mumbles, like he can’t believe it. “Zayn—you say all these _things_ —”

“Have I lied to you?” Zayn is pleading now, as desperate as a lover because that’s what he is, isn’t he? There’s no denying it now. “Have I ever lied to you, babe?”

Taylor is softly humming in the background as he falls asleep, _Liar, liar, pants on fire._ Liam says nothing for a little while and Zayn’s heartbeat grows louder and louder in his chest. What if Liam takes the next route out of the highway and decides to turn Zayn in? What if Liam bursts into tears and drives all three of them into another car? What if—

“You said you’d grab lunch.”

Zayn smiles, feeling the weight fly off of his chest. “And I will. A happy meal with ice cream?”

“ _Three_ happy meals,” Liam corrects.

Zayn feels like flying. He feels like he _can_ fly, and he’s pretty fucking sure that he jumps out the window right here and right now, he’ll be floating above his former _family_ ’s heads. When has he ever felt like this before? When has anyone willingly accepted him into a group he so longed to belong to, an actual family?

“Remember what you said to me earlier? When we were having sex?”

Liam’s face scrunches at the word choice, but he doesn’t seem to be able to see what Zayn is getting at. “It starts from zero?”

“No,” Zayn corrects. “When you told me you loved me, do you remember that?”

Liam’s face changes color, and he bites his upper lip like he does when he’s nervous. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I _swear_ —it’s just, in that moment—I just didn’t know what I was saying—”

“I love you so much, Liam,” Zayn says, and Liam shuts up. It comes out just like that and out of absolutely nowhere, but it’s alright because it’s definitely true. “You’re so amazing, you’re so great, you’re so _brave_. I don’t even know anymore, Liam, but I think I love you.” It ends up sounding more like a plea than anything. Please keep accepting me. Please don’t wake up and decide that you hate me, that you want me out of your life.

Thankfully, Liam laughs. Maybe there are hints of happy tears in his eyes, maybe there aren’t. “I love you too,” he says quietly. “I don’t know how it happened, I’ll be honest. One second you were a complete creep and a criminal and the next you—who even are you? You just, just walked in and fucking _changed my life_ , and. Is that even allowed?”

“Swear jar,” Zayn hisses, but he’s smiling like an idiot. He throws his head back and starts laughing, then. It’s hilarious, life. Pretty fucking crazy, too. But he’ll make it work, because yes, they’re allowed to fucking change their lives. And they’re worth it, he figures, Liam and him. They’re worth risking all they’ve got, a town they’ve grown up in and people that have raised them. Partly because they haven’t got much anyway, but mostly because Batman will always come back for Gotham City and Zayn is the one that will dance on the floor in the round, over and over and over again until he’s dizzy and all he knows is that his hand is holding Liam’s and Taylor’s.

—


End file.
